Practice
Our focus is on creating more meaningful relationships with the properties we represent and the like-minded clients we serve.
Led by Shirley Yoon Kim, Signature Spaces is an integrated real estate practice focused on distinctive residential and commercial properties across Toronto and Ontario. Each property is approached with care — cultivating meaningful relationships with the spaces we represent and the clients who value them.
We work with clients who understand the profound impact real estate has on how we live and work — and the long-term value of investing in spaces with character and depth. Whether a home, a commercial space, a mixed-use building or a thoughtful adaptive reuse, we bring forward the elements that shape a property’s story — its architecture, its context and the people it serves.
Our practice is built on cultivating deeper relationships — with clients, collaborators and the properties themselves. The result is a highly personal, considered and design-informed approach to real estate, serving local and global clientele who value nuance, character and Signature Spaces.
Approach
Our holistic process allows us to navigate some of the most unique and complex properties while maintaining an individualized approach to every client’s goals.
We begin with a considered reading of a property’s presence — its location, its relationship to the client and its position within the market. Every property and client is guided by a team led by Shirley Yoon Kim, ensuring alignment and continuity throughout the process.
We intentionally do not specialize in one type of property.
Our extensive experience spans residential homes and condos, mixed-use storefronts, and distinctive commercial buildings across Toronto and Ontario. Our flexibility and expansive perspective allow us to adapt quickly to our clients’ needs and reflect our belief that real estate is integrated across uses, scales and contexts.
We believe that a property’s success is based on a collaborative and integrated approach.
We work with a trusted network of specialists we have partnered with for years — editorial photographers, stylists, inspectors, architects, consultants, broker colleagues and other professionals whose expertise strengthens every property.
We are informed by design and culture and have a comprehensive understanding of Toronto’s real estate market.
This perspective allows us to engage in a mindful dialogue with each property’s location, narrative and market context, resulting in an approach that is both thoughtful and precisely aligned with our clients’ goals.
Shirley Yoon Kim
With more than 18 years of experience in Toronto’s residential, commercial and mixed-use real estate markets, Shirley Yoon Kim is known for her thoughtful, design-informed approach and her ability to connect distinctive properties with clients who value nuance, character and long-term vision. Consistently ranked among the city’s top real estate professionals, she brings a rare balance of market intelligence, aesthetic literacy and strategic guidance to every project.
As Senior Vice President of Sales at Sotheby’s International Realty Canada, Shirley leads Signature Spaces — an integrated real estate practice focused on homes, commercial spaces, mixed-use buildings and heritage or adaptive-reuse properties across Toronto and Ontario. Her work is grounded in a deep understanding of how architecture, culture and lived experience shape the way people inhabit and value space. She advises clients across the full spectrum of acquisition, sales, investment and disposition, both locally and internationally. Shirley is also a Certified International Property Specialist (CIPS), reflecting her global perspective and client base.
Shirley holds a degree in Art Criticism & Curatorial Practice, a foundation that informs her measured, editorial approach to positioning properties within their architectural and cultural context. She also draws inspiration from her family’s company, South Korea–based SsangYong Group (쌍용그룹), whose legacy spans automotive and heavy industry as well as the engineering and construction of internationally recognized architectural projects, including Marina Bay Sands in Singapore and Atlantis The Royal in Dubai.
Her practice is defined by clarity, care and an enduring commitment to the spaces and clients she serves.
Connect with Shirley
